James Dolan Is Doing All He Can to Kill the Knicks’ Vibe
Just about every single Knicks development since they won the title last June — remember that? They won the title? It was incredibly awesome! — has been negative. And it has all been Jim Dolan’s fault. Of course it has.
One of the primary reasons team president Leon Rose and the rest of the Knicks brass were able to build the championship roster they did — and they won the championship! The Knicks! Woooooooooo!!!! — was that, for the first time really since he took over ownership of the team, Dolan stayed out of things. Maybe he was busy with the Sphere or all the wonderful political activity he’s involved with, or maybe those hard-rockin’ tours exhausted him. Regardless of the reason, the Knicks’ usually meddling owner stayed mostly absent and/or silent as Rose meticulously constructed the Knicks into the NBA champions (woooo!!!) they became last June.
Inevitably, that era has come to an end. We saw the beginning of its demise during and after the Finals: There was Dolan’s vibes-destroying invitation to President Trump to attend game three; his stupid fight with the mayor over watch parties outside MSG; his relentless megalomania at both the trophy presentation and the parade. All of that was essentially harmless, though — Dolan was always going to put himself front and center once the Knicks finally broke through and act like their success was a testament to his leadership rather than a direct refutation of it. He’s Jim Dolan. He’s a huge freaking goober.
But this offseason, Dolan’s clownishness started affecting the actual team itself.
Just four days after the title win, Dolan gave an interview to (fellow meathead) Craig Carton on WFAN, in which he opined that it would be “suicidal” for the team to go over the second apron — essentially, the NBA’s maximum salary cap, which you can spend above but which........
